Nanite Echoes
by Trinity Infinity
Summary: She came to him for help, but in also knew something so personal about him that he can't help but to know how or why she knows this. Rated K  for now, will probably raise the rating in later chapters. No slash. Chapter 2 up.
1. Chapter 1

There was an unsettling quiet in the dam that night, though the only person awake to really notice it at the time was Rex. Even White Knight was asleep at this hour but something had woken Rex up. He felt rather uncomfortable with his surroundings like he normally did after a nightmare that he didn't understand.

He took a deep breath trying to orient himself and to relax and maybe go back to sleep, a soft noise echoed from inside the dam's walls which caused him to poke his head out of his makeshift room cautiously expecting to see Six stalking around but only moonlight and shadows were the stalkers this night. He shook his head trying to clear the voices from his nightmare in his head, it was just a dream and now his mind was playing tricks on him.

Before he turned his back to curl up under the warm blankets once again a sound echoed across the room, this time a scraping noise accompanied the echo followed by a soft sob. Alerted that someone might be in danger he stepped out of the bus and built the large orange and gray hands to defend himself from who or what might be in the dam with him.

"Come out and maybe I'll go easy on you." He called and waited for something to fly at him, after dealing with Evos for so long he almost started to expect something to attack him.

Instead he was met with more silence, feeling very confused he dropped the mechanics from his hand and cautiously walked forward listening for sound. Again the sound of something dragging came to mind, was he losing it? Maybe he was still dreaming, that thought put him in a panic which caused him to pinch himself. It hurt which meant it wasn't a dream so that could mean he was losing his mind, as he tried to reason out things within his mind a figure stepped into the moonlight and collapsed. It tried to pick itself up again but failed, the body was covered with some sort of growths.

"Hey! Are you alright?" He moved forward, all sense of caution being thrown to the wind. Why hadn't the alarm for the base tripped, but that question was far back into his mind at the time.

He knelt down to see a younger woman covered in some strange blue crystal like growth that was slowly spreading across her body. She chuckled weakly when her vision cleared enough to see his face.

"If I was alright, I wouldn't be here." She tried to push herself up, but a sudden spike in the crystal growth caused her to writhe in pain. Rex bit his lip and called for Holiday, he wasn't sure of himself right now. Months ago he would have tried to deactivate her nanites on the spot but something wasn't right, it looked like she'd been hit by another evo and was suffering from it's powers.

It was a half hour before any more answers were gained from her, she was half sitting and laying down in the med-lab Holiday had set up.

"Her nanites are acting strangely, it's like they want to try and activate but something is causing them to malfunction. It's like they've got faulty coding." She frowned looking at the computer screen, this would definitely be Ceasar's field of expertise at the moment but she couldn't help but feeling calling him for help would be a bad idea.

"Can't I just fix her nanites?" Rex asked, he considered trying to deactivate the nanites as he crossed the room. The girl writhed again, the crystalline growth spreading across chest.

"I'm not sure, but I'm not sure how it would effect your own nanites. That's the problem right now."

"I came because I heard he could fix problems like this." She groaned trying to sit up more, she'd been trying to get the will to talk but the pain of the spreading crystals was getting to her.

"I don't know if anyone can help you at this stage, if I can understand what happened to you maybe I can do something." Holiday gave the poor girl a sympathetic look.

"It started after providence came after me."

"But you look like an ordinary human." Rex stated.

"Where I lived people knew I was 'infected', not in the way everyone is. But different." She took a steadying breath and pushed her self into a sitting up position.

"How did they know you were an evo?"

"Because I had to fight to control what was happening to me. When it first started happening I had a problem similar to this but my mind wasn't as clear it just was confusion and fear, this time around I have my mind but I can't control what my body is doing." She winced as a shard of crystal shot out from her shoulder.

"You forced yourself to control your evo powers?" Six raised an eyebrow as he entered the room, he didn't trust her. She hadn't set off any alarms it felt like a setup.

"I didn't want to hurt anyone, I had already lost my parents to an evo attack years ago. I didn't want to do what happened to me to someone else." The girl went quiet as she recalled the last time she saw her parents.

"Six, she needs help. She came to us for help." Rex gave his partner a look, he knew that the sixth most dangerous man in the world could be distrusting but this person. There was something in her voice and the look in her eyes that he couldn't ignore, it seemed to echo the same thoughts that came to him when he truly thought about his powers and what would happen if he lost control of himself.

"I don't fully understand what's going on with her nanites and we don't want to run the risk of corrupting your own Rex." Holiday sighed, she hated being put in these positions.

"I know someone who can and will." Rex picked his phone up and hit speed dial.

"Rex are you sure this is a good idea?" Holiday started to protest but realised that she couldn't stop him from calling his older brother or trying to do the right thing. The girl appeared to be quietly suffering as if she didn't want to disturb or bother anyone with her problems.

Holiday looked at Six who folded his arms, the question was there, why didn't she trip any alarms? And how did she know where to find Rex?

"This is Doctor Salazar." The voice of the elder Salazar finally came on the line after a moment of silence.

"I need your help, there's someone in trouble."

"Ah can it wait? I'm a bit busy."

"Ceasar this is serious, someone's life could be in danger." He glanced over his shoulder to the slowly crystalising girl.

"Little brother, I understand you want to do things but I have things I need to do as well." Ceasar sighed feeling guilty for saying no, but his work was too important. He had too many mistakes to fix right now.

"Ceasar, listen to me. If you don't figure out what's wrong with her, I'll do it myself even if it's the end of me." Rex tried to put in a threatening tone, not wanting to believe that his brother really didn't value human life.

There was a short pause followed by a deep sigh followed by a string of Spanish almost too fast for Rex to fully comprehend. "Alright, bring her somewhere quiet. Providence tends to like to capture Evos and if you haven't noticed, you are an evo."

"I can handle them." Rex chuckled at his brother's attempt at humour, he felt relieved that Ceasar wasn't an inhuman monster not wanting to attempt to save a life.

"We'll need to move her and Ceasar can try and help her." Rex nodded to Holiday.

"We'll make a meeting spot and get on this. I really hope this works out." There was a tone that Rex honestly didn't like but Six was giving him the same look Holiday had given him when he called for her to help.

"It'll be fine." He frowned at the adults who then exchanged a glance and then disappeared to make preparations for moving out to a secure location.

It was hours later when the mobile lab was on the road, Rex had opted to sit in the lab with the girl. Holiday had given her something that she said would try to slow down the nanite activity in her body and would ultimately slow down the spread of the crystals. He attempted to make conversation with her multiple times, jokes, questions all went unnoticed. She seemed to be intent on staring at her feet that were starting to show signs of crystalisation as well as the portions of her upper body.

He sighed feeling like a jerk for just sitting there babbling on about things and finally fell silent. He was about to get up and go see if Bobo at least would keep him company when her voice registered.

"I'm sorry, you asked a question. I didn't answer it, my name is Eva." She said quietly.

"No it's okay, just took longer than I thought. So you learned to control your powers?" He sat back down looking at her.

"I guess you can call it that, I remember being afraid and feeling like something wasn't right. I remember looking awful and people running away and then people came after me and I ran."

"What happened then?"

"I hid somewhere for a while, fighting with this overwhelming fear and panic. Soon I felt like I had some sort of control over myself and tried to look normal, I didn't want to be feared." Eva replied quietly watching a crystaline growth peak from under her skin on her foot.

"I know the feeling." Rex nodded remembering when people were afraid of him after Hunter Cain had done quite a bit of damage to his reputation.

"It took a long time and a lot of practice but then I wasn't scary. I was normal...sort of. My neighbors thought I was 'sick' still, called providence several times but after no rampaging monster they stopped coming." Rex nodded vaguely remembering someone reading reports of false Evo sightings.

"But you still had the powers to...control whatever it is you do." Rex gestured to her spiked outer shell.

"Yes in a way I tried to practice and understand it like I did with everything else. If I understood what was happening to me, then I wouldn't be afraid and I would be happy." Eva put her head back against a wall and finally made eye contact with Rex since they'd left the dam.

"But why did providence come after you now?"

"I don't know, I don't understand why but my neighborhood was suddenly thrown into a fury. Something scared them and then providence showed up, people were cheering when they tried to put something on me and then I remember sound and vibration and feeling something just...wrong. It was wrong and I was scared again. The crystals just wouldn't stop growing and I ran away. But then I couldn't get it stop and I remember from the TV that you can fix problems like this."

"But how did you find me?" Rex raised an eyebrow, it wasn't like Noah blabbed about where Rex was living and even if he did talking to a girl much less covered in crystaline tumours would probably not be on the top of his list this week.

"I can feel nanites in a strange way. It's like everyone has the same nanites except for something slightly different about them, like a way a person walks or has quirks. It's unique to them." Eva shifted a bit trying to make her pain a bit less. "And I just sort of felt around until something felt not normal."

"Not...normal?"

"I didn't mean it that way, please forgive me. I don't explain myself very well." Eva turned her eyes back to her feet feeling stupid. She let her dark bangs fall in front of her face trying to hide the fact that she felt embarrassed.

"No it's okay don't worry." Rex held up his hands, he couldn't help but feel bad for her at this point. She lost her family, her neighbors didn't trust her and now something had messed with what she thought was a fairly normal life.

A voice crackled in Rex's ear before he could ask another question, it was holiday informing him that they would be reaching the meeting site in 5 and to get ready in case of an ambush.

"We'll get you help. My brother isn't a bad guy, just trying to do things his way." Rex tried to give her a smile but only felt some doubt as he spoke about his brother. The hesitance in his voice to help them plus the restarting of the Nanite program, it was all a bit much for him to really take in sometimes.

"We're here, Ceasar's lab is in site. We do things on our terms, she doesn't leave the med bay." Six's voice came over the ear piece.

"Understood, let's just try and help her." Rex spoke quietly and turned to face the door that his older brother would be walking in shortly.

"You get nightmares don't you?" Eva spoke up.

Rex turned around and looked at her about to ask how she knew, but Ceasar interrupted his question with a greeting and a hug. Though it was genuine there was still some feelings of resentment in Rex that he couldn't shake, Ceasar picked up on this and moved over to Eva who instinctively scooted away, her head was starting to pound as fear crept into her mind.

"Now let's see what you're dealing with." He reached out to touch her when a shard of crystal shot up from her arm causing her to cry out.

If Rex hadn't reacted as fast as he did Ceasar would have had a sharp shard of crystal through his hand. However the danger did not seem to scare the elder brother but only fascinated him.

"Interesting, your nanites are almost reacting defensively without you doing anything." He mused thinking about what this could mean and then took a peek at what was already done as to not waste time. Black Knight didn't like him being away from headquarters for too long, she started getting loud and annoying which interrupted his thinking.

Eva looked at the two brothers and brought her knees up to her chest while the older one muttered in Spanish while looking at the computer screens. She then glanced at Rex and frowned, she could sense the lingering nightmares from earlier that night. It was almost as if their nanites were talking to each other in a different way from how she felt other active nanites.

"What? It's going to be okay." Rex tried to be calming as Holiday walked in.

"I worry that is all." Eva said simply but her tone said more than her words. Rex shook his head and sat down as Bobo strolled in yawning, apparently he'd been asleep up until now.

"Worry about what? You're in a room full of brainiacs and Evo experts, if they can't fix your noggin no one can." Bobo flopped in the seat next to Rex and kicked him gently.

"Mine isn't the only problem." She stated quietly and closed her eyes, her head was killing her and she could feel more crystals starting to form and push through.

"You said something about me a bit before what did you mean?" Rex pushed this, but didn't want to really give away that nightmares were his main concern right now. He thought that after his time training as an agent for providence and then defecting the nightmares that used to plague him would be gone. But no they had come back, worse than ever and some how she knew he was having them.


	2. Chapter 2

"Whatever you're doing you need to stop." Caesar spoke up. "It's causing your nanites to increase the crystal growths. It might be connected to a genetic condition but I'm not sure what's mutated here."

Eva closed her eyes looking frustrated, no matter what she did it seemed to always bite her in the ass. "You don't remember actively but you do. I can't explain it but it bothers you."

"She makes as much sense as you do chief." Bobo snorted in Caesar's general direction.

Caesar either didn't hear the comment or choose to ignore it, the data in front of him was engrossing. Her nanites were strange like they'd had complete programing at one time but something corrupted the data and only erased half of it. The collars shouldn't have done that to any nanite just override much of the muscular control an EVO had in it's body. He frowned as his mind raced through different scenarios that would cause such an event to occur, narrowing down the possibilities from a hundred to 37 he sat down in a chair and spun to face Eva.

"Now exactly what happened when you started this manifestation, you were collared and then you fought against it?"

"Yes, I wanted it off. I felt my own ability to control myself slip and when I am not in control of my actions I become a monster." Eva stated as if she were talking to a 5 year old.

Caesar nodded and tried another path. "Did you try to pull it off?"

Eva nodded. "I did, but I couldn't that's when these things started growing. I think someone tried to hit me with a cattle prod but I don't remember. I just remember pain and fear."

Caesar once again faced the computer screen thinking about the following facts and what he witnessed in front of his own face when he went to touch her for the first time. His thoughts were interrupted when something large slammed against the portable lab, Rex jumped up and looked to Six who was already moving for the door.

"I'm guessing someone doesn't appreciate when their lead scientist is on house calls." Six was already out the door ready to clear a path and to cut the line that was most likely getting secured to the lab.

"I'm going with you." Rex started out the door when Caesar stopped him.

"Wait I need time to figure out what's wrong with her. I can't do it if this place is about to become a war zone."

"What are you saying?"

"I'll take her and get clear of Providence."

"Absolutely not." Holiday spoke firmly.

"I trust him." Rex spoke up. "In fact I will go with him, if anything he'll need a second line of defense if Providence does catch up."

"That's the spirit little brother, let's get her out." Caesar was already helping her up, the crystalline structures across her body must have doubled her weight but between the two Salazars she was out the door.

"Six we need a path!" Rex called to his partner.

Six looked back and noticed terms had changed from the original plan of keeping Eva in the med lab. Without hesitation the twin katanas were then opening a path to the pod that Caesar almost seemed to live out of. Once on the lift a new group of providence was being dropped to their location, the Black Pawns. Rex was getting ready to jump off to take on the group.

"I can do this." Eva murmured quietly, she was tired. Tired of providence bothering her and despite the pain of the crystalline growths across her body she was angry. Her free arm lifted and then covered itself with crystalline scales that shimmered in the late morning light. There was a pause and then a wave of of scales erupted from her hand, several pawns went down but more advanced.

She bit her lip and allowed the progression of scales to form farther up her arm and neck, she put her lips together to whistle but instead a shrill sound erupted from her causing several pawns to double over in pain. She'd made sure to whistle at the pitch that would cause the most pain right now, but feeling tired and in pain she ceased as she was dragged into the pod. The engines kicked in and suddenly with a rush they'd left the area leaving Six and Holiday behind as well as the next wave of Providence soldiers that didn't have their ear drums shattered.

"That was amazing, how did you do that?" Rex was quite taken by the way her powers worked.

The crystal scales began to recede and crumble into glittering dust as it dropped off her body. "Practice." She chuckled weakly and then winced as several new growths appeared over her chest and began to spread across her free arm.

Caesar returned to the small lab area after auto pilot had been engaged, Providence would have a time catching up or reading their patterns of travel for a while. Black Knight was a clever woman but indeed she was not as clever as he was and would be trying to track them for a while.

"Now let's try and fix this problem." He mused sitting down at the computer console and reconfiguring the data that he'd seen. His memory was good enough to duplicate the results of previous tests and information Holiday had already run.

Rex peered out the door watching clouds whiz by as Caesar ran more tests and looked at the nanite's coding again. Rex looked back at Eva who was sitting in a chair watching Caesar work and appearing to be reading the information on the computer screens. It must be depressing not knowing what was wrong with you and trying to understand something as complex as nanites. Even he didn't understand everything about his own nanites, he was bothered by what she had said earlier still.

"Eva, I hate to push but what were you saying about remembering?" Rex started out cautiously.

"You know something in your mind, maybe in your heart. But you don't actively know it. It hangs over you, like a dark cloud." She shrugged tucking a foot up under herself.

"But how did you know about the nightmares?" Rex blurted out then glanced at Caesar waiting for him to say something about his forgotten past. But nothing came up from his elder brother, he wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved by this.

"Your nanites told me. They remember in a way you don't."

"How is that possible?" Rex was feeling frustrated like she was going around in circles on purpose.

"Actually, it's possibly the same way you 'talk to machines' just without contact. I'm seeing some interesting patterns in her nanites that lead me to believe they had a near complete programming at one time." Caesar looked up and then looked back at his screen waiting for more relevant conversation.

"But without physical contact? And you said you could find me by sensing the nanites."

"You sense other things." Eva stated simply.

Before even asking he figured that his nanites told her just like they told her about the nightmares. Rex sat down and sighed trying to sort all of this out in his head and also trying to figure out what to do with her and where to hide her when this was all fixed and through. He didn't want to leave her on her own, she just seemed so lonely and she wouldn't be a danger to anyone else. Briefly he considered taking her to Hong Kong but with the increased Providence presence there he felt that would be leading her into a dead end life. His former gang was already having enough trouble staying away from Providence as it stood right now, so that was one idea that was already trashed.

"Rex I have an idea, I need you to try to cure her." Caesar suddenly spoke up and was already going to tap him with a bar that sparked with electricity.

"Wait how much is that going to hurt?" Rex put up his hands. Before Caesar could answer the bar made contact, it felt like he'd just been thrown through a wall.

Shaking his head he grumbled at his brother and looked at Eva. "Are you sure this is going to work."

"Ahh 88% sure...maybe. I can rework the numbers."

"Still a passing grade." Eva joked quietly and rubbed a spot where a new crystal had sprouted on her knee.

Rex reached out his hand and touched her, the blue pattern spreading from his hand to her shoulder. But rather than the usual feeling of something working, something was wrong. Instead of the usual smooth results he was used to getting he only felt resistance and suddenly felt like someone was intruding into his mind. Similar to when Caesar set the Omega-1 to build a locator out of Rex, instead of the blueprints and strange imagery he got the last time this time it was just dark and the slight flicker of TV screens in the distance.

A terrible mechanical roar filled his mind followed by a shrill scream and as the flickering grew brighter it all of a sudden stopped when he was jerked back to the real world.

"Rex. Rex say something." Caesar shook him.

He blinked a few times trying to process what had happened to him and what he had heard, he put a hand to his head only to get smacked with something quite firm. He looked at his hand and realised a large crystal like tumor was now sitting in the center of his palm.

"Caesar?" A slight tone of panic filled his voice.

"It's alright, slight miscalculation. I can fix it. I think." Caesar disappeared to the computers again running more tests trying to see what had gone wrong.

"Eva did you see anything weird?" Rex looked at her and sighed, she didn't seem to be any better, in fact it looked worse than when he tried to cure her. The crystals had spread more down her arm giving her a spotted look.

"I didn't see. I heard. You, did something a long time ago. Something bad." Eva frowned.

"B-bad?"Rex sputtered.

"I don't think it was your fault it happened. But it was bad. You don't remember for some reason."

"What did I do?" Rex was tempted to try curing her again if he could find out what she was talking about.

"I don't know."

"But you gave me that vision, when I tried to cure you. You gave it to me."

"I can't control it." Eva's voice rose in frustration, she pushed herself out of the chair and hobbled over to Rex to get in his face which didn't work as well she was shorter than him. "You touched me, your nanites talked to mine. I don't understand it all I can't make these things happen at will!"

"Alright, alright let's settle down. It's not doing either of you any good to shout." Caesar put his hands up at the two bickering.

"Why? It's making me feel better to finally shout at someone." Eva's soft spoken voice seemed to disappear, everything was finally getting to her. The pain, the stress, the feelings of being considered less than human by her old neighbors and people demanding things from her.

"Because the more you two lose control of your emotions the faster that growth is going to spread." Caesar spoke firmly pointing to the sudden out break of crystals on the both of them.

Eva sighed and found herself sitting down and feeling like she was having the second worst day of her life, she could have sat back down her in chair but she honestly didn't feel like trying to move. It was too frustrating, all she could muster was to put her head on her knees and stare at her lap in silence and pain.

Rex sat down and ran his non-infected hand through his hair and sighed. "I'm..sorry for yelling."

"Yeah me too." Eva replied muffled, she still felt horrible about spreading whatever was wrong with her to him but at this point in time she hoped that it would cause the other brother to work faster to relieve them both of this terrible pain.

The next hour was spent mostly in silence with only a few complaints coming from Rex as a new crystal tumor popped up. Several tests were ran, a few successful treatments in getting some to fade away but the spread hadn't stopped.

The pod was still moving fairly fast and finally it came to rest in a desolate mountain range. The stop and landing caused Eva to jump which caused another few tumors to pop up. She grumbled a few curse words and stared at the ceiling wishing now for death to take her. Everything hurt, physically and emotionally.

"You said you can sense EVOs right?" Rex tried to make conversation again, the silence was killing him.

"In a way yes, they send out signals like a specific perfume. At least that's how it is to me. I'm not sure if anyone else can do that, but certain EVOs give off certain scents. Clearly more intelligent ones are easier to find, the signal is stronger as is the smell."

"That makes sense I guess." Rex pondered on this. "So what do I 'smell' like?"

"Lemon Grass."

"That sounds incredibly girly." He raised an eyebrow.

"Hey I'm only answering a question. It's not my fault that your nanites make me smell Lemon Grass."

"Have you smelled that anywhere else?" Rex dug deeper trying to understand this better.

"Not really to be honest, I've smelled Lemon Grass before but it's never been just Lemon Grass. Always mixed with something else." Eva shrugged as best as she could with two large growths on her shoulders.

Caesar stood up and held up a piece of paper interrupting Rex's next question. "Well the good news is that I think I figured out how to reverse the growths."

"And the bad news?" Rex asked dryly there was always bad news when someone started out the conversation.

"I need a good powerful jolt of electricity to fully cure it."

"That doesn't sound all that bad." Eva sighed.

"I can use the ship's current charge but it's only good for one hit then it'll be a while before we could even move or attempt to cure the other person." Caesar sighed it looked like it would be a choice between curing the girl or his brother. He knew where he stood on this, his brother would be the first to be cured but with the accelerated rate that the crystals were growing on Eva it might completely take over her body faster than he could neutralise them causing her lungs to be crushed by the weight.

"Cure her first." Rex stretched out a leg. "It's polite to let ladies go first."

"The crystals could over take you faster than I could neutralise them." Caesar stood up and paced. He didn't like decisions like this, he liked science. Science was easy compared to these choices.

Rex understood that this also bode the same fate for Eva, it came down to him or her. There was a fight he had to finish but could he finish it knowing that he took someone's chance at being cured.


End file.
